Posts by Myles Thomas

We had the same problem with our KB MasterCard while travelling round Europe last year. A day into our trip it stopped working. We assumed it was a rural France thing and continued with our KB eftpos/debit card but in London that stopped working too. We were out of cash for a day and a half, couldn't take the kids to things we'd planned to in our short 3 day visit and were borrowing from friends.

After battling time zones and call centre waits which are unforgivable, It turned out the MasterCard was blocked cos of dodgy transactions which is fine but they hadn't tried to contact either of us despite having all our ph numbers and email addresses (why do they collect them if they won't use them?) The debit card was blocked cos we spent over $1000 on a laptop and the bank thought that was suspicious though it allowed the transaction. Again no attempt to contact was made.

Since returning we moved to ASB visa. It was easy to do and I recommend it.

I think KiwiBank contracts it's credit card services from Shitty old MasterCard which explains the big difference in service.

The thing to remember is that it's the system that creates these problems and not the individuals. Guardian writers are no better than Sun writers - they're just doing a different job, informing vs building audiences. Equally the TVNZ commissioners work in a deeply commercial, precarious and risk averse environment. That is created by pressure from their bosses who are under huge pressure in turn from their shareholders, the government, to make as many $$$ as possible.

So cynical. Even if Greive is plumping for NZME or Spinoff his points are still relevant. More relevant still is Russell's about the need for a non-commercial channel (note channel in the broader sense, ie not only broadcast) which is able to take risks a la SBS or ch4 in the UK.

I'm willing to accept that many people like the silver fern and the southern cross and that Lockwood's shallow symbolism appealed to many Kiwis. As such if most people like it, I can accept these two symbols on our flag, but what ruins his design is the... design. It's poor. The fern is too big and munty looking. The stars are way too big too. These things are what make this flag a fail, and by extension anyone waving it.

This is the fault of the process where the flag panel had to choose only from the entries all designed on word for Windows. The flag panel should've had the opportunity to take those basic ideas and rework them so they're better. Ie make the fern better, shrink the stars back a little, get a deeper blue rather than from a basic computer palette.

This was the point of the recent safety ads getting people to think of cyclists as real people. They featured a person with DAD or DAUGHTER written on their shirt while riding a bike. Perhaps whoever researched that campaign discovered that drivers' dislike of cyclists is the greatest threat to cyclist safety more than being visible, leaving a bubble etc.

I'd be interested to hear what these commentators like Hosk and Clarkson, who are frankly just assholes, have to say about the lovely general public hating on cyclists so much that we need public safety messages about it.

My guess is that the “backing yourself or your friend or colleague” effect is swamped by genuine predictions from political junkies who are not personally involved in particular races

Not really. It's pretty easy to dominate an obscure stock for a week by sinking a few hundred dollars into it. There were fascinating instances of stocks behaving abnormally around Len Brown quitting and prior to that Bob Parker.

It came up in Dirty Politics too in which a protagonist boasted of altering the market enough to generate a few news headlines.

But these larger party-vote stocks would cost a bit more to alter as there are more gamblers playing them. My guess would be a couple of thousand to push a stock 5% for a week. Being persistent you could alter the herd thinking for longer as well.

A reason for crime rate drops apart from efficacy of strikes could be found by looking at lead in our petrol. I shit you not. Read this. http://m.motherjones.com/environment/2013/01/lead-crime-link-gasolineThe lag between lead being removed from petrol and crime rates dropping is 20 years - the approx peak age for offending. Lead was banned here in 96 so expect to see crime dropping for another year or two and then flatten off?